The comments suggest that the Obama Administration doesn’t want to undermine Karzai’s already shaky government by looking like they oppose the president’s scheme. Secretary Gates added that the Taliban needed to be “ready to help build a 21st-century Afghanistan.”

854510 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Fnews.antiwar.com%2F2010%2F01%2F22%2Fgates-taliban-part-of-political-fabric-of-afghanistan%2FGates%3A+Taliban+Part+of+%27Political+Fabric%27+of+Afghanistan2010-01-23+03%3A29%3A38Jason+Ditzhttp%3A%2F%2Fnews.antiwar.com%2F%3Fp%3D8545 to “Gates: Taliban Part of ‘Political Fabric’ of Afghanistan”

Gates, go take a hike. if i was a Taliban i would not trust you either. Afghanistan does not need the USA to build a 21st Century State, only financial restitution for all the damage done.. A war tax in the USA is in order to make all patriots and war supporters pay for damages done. This money needs to come out of american tax pockets, not from resources stolen by the invasion. after years of bickering with Germany to pay restitution to Israel to the tune of billions of dollars it is nice to see the shoe on the other foot. America, pay up. Iraq was also invaded under false pretenses and needs to be rebuild with American funds.

If Gates finnaly has got it fiqured out . The Talaban is the fabric or foundation of Afgan culture . And I agree with him this time . We should now conclude that the Talaban is more closely aligned with AlQaida than either Europe or The United States . If we wish to work more closely with Afganhistan or any of the Islamic countries it is us that have to change . And changing we are , we just are not changing fast enough to suit the terrorists . And of course the muslims are not changing fast enough to suit our new world order satin controled governments .

NO one cared when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan; when they destroyed 1000 year old Bhuddas carved into mountains; when they rid the country of the poppy fields. BUT – when 'Big Oil' wanted to build a gas pipeline across Afghanistan – then the Taliban had to go and that is why the U.S. is there. The 9/11 attackers mostly came from Saudi Arabia and they trained to fly planes in the U.S. after being granted visas to enter the U.S. by the NSA which had them all on a terrorist watch list. As always ' "the truth is the first Casualty of war." And virtually all wars are based on LIES! NO invading country has ever truly conquered Afghanistan or held onto it. As 'Rambo' was warned (just a movie?) – "in this part of the world we pray a prayer that God protect us from the teeth of the tiger; from the venom of the cobra; and from the vengeance of the Afghan." Sounds like a good and timely prayer!

Gates says completely opposite things every couple of days. In this, he is like the entire Bush Administration and most of Obama's too. They must think we have very short memories. Perhaps they are right. But, if the Taliban is "part of the fabric of Afghan society," the U.S. military certainly is not. So he is admitting we should leave, but saying we won't anyway, because his friends are profiting too much. Every time you think they can't get any sicker, they dig a new low.

from a 22 Jan Press Roundtable with Secretary Gates and Pakistani Print Press:
SEC. GATES: Al Qaeda, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Tehreek-e-Taliban in Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Haqqani network — this is a syndicate of terrorists that work together. . .there is no such thing as some of those extremist groups being good and some of those extremist groups being bad. They're all bad. They all represent a cancer that eats at the stability of this region. And that's why we have to work together, to take them all down.

SEC. GATES (later in the roundtable): The Taliban — as Secretary Clinton and I testified on Capitol Hill, the Taliban, we recognize, are a part of the political fabric of Afghanistan at this point. . .The question is, what do the Taliban want to make out of Afghanistan? When they tried before, we saw what they wanted to make, and it was a desert, culturally and every other way. So the question is whether the Taliban, at some point in this process, are rather — are ready to help build a 21st-century Afghanistan, or whether they still just want to kill people.http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.asp…